'Andhra will achieve 7% growth in 10th Plan'

The state government is poised to achieve a 7 percent compounded annual growth rate during the 10th Five Year Plan (2002-2007), with an increased contribution from the agriculture sector in the last couple of years.

This was revealed during the mid-term review of the implementation of the 10th Plan made by chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy at a meeting here on Sunday.

According to the mid-term review, the state economy showed a healthy recovery in all sectors and sub-sectors in the last two years and five months of the Congress rule in the state.

"Going by the present pace of developmental works, the state is poised to achieve 9 per cent annual growth rate in th 11th Five Year Plan period, with the agriculture sector contributing about four per cent," it said.

After the review, the chief minister said that the overall economic growth rate of the state had fallen to 5.5 per cent during 1994-2004, lower than the national average of 6.10 per cent a year.

"The agriculture sector was neglected, and the negative growth rate in agriculture for almost a decade of the previous regime had brought down the income of a large section of people employed in agriculture and led to unprecedented suicides that continued till the end of 2005," he observed.

Reddy said that once the ongoing irrigation projects under Jalayagnam were completed, bringing an additional 75 lakh acres under cultivation would bring stability to the farm sector and improve agriculture productivity level by 50 per cent.

Stating that the current gross state domestic product (GSDP) of Rs 2,25,892 crore and per capita income of Rs 25,625 were above the national average, the chief minister said, "This shows that our programmes and policies are on the right track to empower the farmer, women, youth and the common man in general," he said.